The logo of the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk is displayed in front of its office in Bagsvaer, a suburb of Copenhagen, on November 24, 2025.
Tom Little | Reuters
novo nordisk The company announced Monday that it will begin selling the first-ever weight-loss GLP-1 pill in the United States, marking a new chapter in obesity treatment in the United States.
The drug’s cash price is among the lowest on the market, ranging from $149 to $299 per month, depending on dosage. That’s fueling hopes that the pill could solve the longstanding affordability hurdles associated with the weekly injections that dominate the weight-loss drug market.
The official launch of the oral drug, called Wegovy pill, comes just two weeks after U.S. regulators approved the treatment.
A starting dose of 1.5 milligrams is available at more than 70,000 pharmacies in the United States. CVS and costco,Ro,LifeMD, weight watcherGoodRx and Novo Nordisk’s NovoCare Pharmacy. Novo Nordisk said the remaining high-dose tablets will be available to patients by the end of this week.
Cash-paying patients can pay $149 per month for a starting dose. The 4-milligram dose tablets are also available for $149 per month until April 15th, and $199 per month thereafter.
The maximum doses of Wegovy pills, 9 milligrams and 25 milligrams, are available for $299 per month. Patients who have insurance for the drug can pay for treatment for as little as $25 per month.
Cash-paying patients can also access a starting dose of the pill for $149 a month on President Donald Trump’s direct-to-consumer website TrumpRx, under an agreement Novo Nordisk signed with the administration in November. The site will also launch in January, but the exact date is unknown.
Novo Nordisk said Monday that the drug’s availability “opens new possibilities” for the more than 100 million Americans living with obesity.
Injection from Novo Nordisk and its main rivals, Eli Lillywhich costs a list price of about $1,000 per month. But both companies offer lower cash prices for their shots, ranging from $299 to $499 per month, depending on dosage.
Pills will be the next battleground for both companies. Both companies have established a fast-growing GLP-1 field that some analysts believe could be worth around $100 billion by the 2030s. Goldman Sachs analysts said in August that oral drugs could capture a 24% share of the global weight-loss drug market in 2030, worth about $22 billion.
The launch of Novo Nordisk’s daily oral drug on Monday gives the company a clear head start. The Food and Drug Administration approved the treatment on Dec. 22 and is expected to decide later this year whether to approve a competing drug from Eli Lilly.
The FDA also approved Novo Nordisk’s tablets for use in reducing the risk of serious cardiovascular events such as death, heart attack, and stroke in adults with obesity and cardiovascular disease.
This is in line with the approved label for the company’s blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy, which shares the same active ingredient semaglutide. Both suppress appetite by mimicking the intestinal hormone GLP-1.
“We’re now changing what’s possible in weight management. To make that possible, we’ve worked to make (Wigovy tablets) affordable and available to those who need them, no matter what treatment they choose to undergo,” Ed Sinka, Novo Nordisk’s senior vice president of marketing and patient solutions, said in a release.
People taking Novo Nordisk tablets must wait 30 minutes before eating or drinking each day.
In a phase 3 study that followed more than 300 obese, non-diabetic adults, the highest dose of Novo Nordisk’s oral semaglutide reduced patients’ weight by an average of up to 16.6% after 64 weeks. When the company analyzed all patients, regardless of whether they stopped the drug, weight loss was 13.6%.
The pill appears to be slightly more effective than Eli Lilly’s experimental oral drug, which does not require dietary restrictions.
